Dogwood and June Bug

Some exciting news came our way last night. Chris' book Dogwood won a Christy Award. The awards are given each year at the International Christian Retail Show. This year it's in Denver. We never expected he would have to schedule a flight in order to attend. Our vacated house is 45 minutes down the road.

Dogwood is a beautiful story of sacrifice and love. Full of intrigue and rich characters. His next novel, June Bug, comes out in a couple of weeks. It too is full of mystery and depth. The opening scene depicts a little girl in Walmart who sees her picture on the missing children board.

June Bug and her dad travel the country in an RV because "my dad says there's a lot of things people don't need and that their houses get cluttered with it, and they store it in basements that flood and get ruined so it's better to live simple and do what you want rather than get tied down to a mortgage." That line was written several months before we vacated our home.

Ironically, Chris made the final edits to June Bug in an RV parked outside our home in Colorado. His office was contaminated with aspergillus and he needed a specific phone line in order to keep doing his daily radio show.

The last conversation I had with my mom was about June Bug. She had just finished it. "Tell Chris I think he ought to write a sequel. I want to know what happens to her." She would have loved this news about Dogwood.

I have the sense that many of the good things that come our way will be bittersweet. That's okay. I'll savor the sweet part.